Man convicted in deadly NY stabbing of beloved Philadelphia dancer
The suspect and other teens said homophobic slurs and anti-Black statements toward O'Shea Sibley and his friends, police said.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The man who killed a beloved dancer and Philadelphia native in an alleged hate crime attack has been convicted of manslaughter in New York.
Dmitriy Popov, who was 17 at the time of the killing, testified at trial that he was just defending himself when he stabbed O'Shea Sibley in Brooklyn back in 2023.
Sibley and his friends were dancing and voguing to a Beyonce song outside of a gas station when a group of people started shouting racial and anti-gay slurs at them.
That's when it escalated to violence and Sibley was stabbed to death.
The jury acquitted the suspect of a more serious charge of murder as a hate crime, which carried the potential of a life sentence.
Popov is scheduled to be sentenced on June 30.
